So there's this news item I want to talk about, but it seems pretty trivial in comparison to the headlines that have popped up lately - you know, the attacks in Egypt and London, the Karl Rove scandal, the looming extension of the Patriot Act, the qualifications of the president's Supreme Court nominee, etc.

Instead of any of the above - important issues all - I want to talk about a video game.

It's not just any video game, mind you, it's the one that's quickly replaced Marilyn Manson and bawdy rap lyrics as the new worst threat to American children. I write all this with more than a grain of salt - a heaping spoonful, in fact - as politicians seem to have found the latest in a long line of non-issues they can bludgeon their adoring constituents with.

The game, if you haven't heard, is "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," the latest in the hugely popular GTA franchise, which is itself part of the multi-billion-dollar video game industry.

The storm of controversy surrounding the game is not the violence - which, though not as gory as many other games on the market, is potent - or the ethics of the game - which involve an ex con cutting a bloody and larcenous swath through a fictional state filled with gangsters, thugs and dirty cops.

It's not even the soundtrack that has garnered outrage - filled with all the 90s tunes Tipper Gore never wanted you to hear. No, what has people - some people, anyway - up in arms over the game is the sex.

It was discovered recently that players could download free software called "Hot Coffee" off the Internet and use it to unlock hidden features in the game that allow the game's protagonist, Carl Johnson, to engage in explicit naughty acts with his "girlfriends."

The resulting furor, a charge led by Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) - apparently kicking off her 2008 presidential bid by snuggling up to the family values crowd her husband alienated years ago - resulted in the game being pulled from the shelves of mainstream retailers like Wal-Mart and Target and in the game being re-rated as AO (Adults Only) rather than the M for Mature it had previously earned for its violence and salacious content. The game's manufacturers have also stopped releasing copies of the game with the hidden software and are coming up with a cleaner version.

Now I've never been much of a 'gamer' myself. Having grown up during the rudimentary days of low-fi computer games and the original Nintendo, my fondest memories of this culture are taking a fistful of quarters to the arcade with my friends and playing blissfully primitive games like "Load Runner" on my dad's old-school Apple computer. Despite a brief obsession with "Tetris" - I had to quit cold turkey after seeing the shapes stack up on one another in my sleep - zoning out in front of a screen with a controller in my hand held little appeal.

But after all the hubbub I kind of want to buy "GTA: San Andreas." It's not that I'll download the software and unlock the sexy content - I doubt I could even if it didn't seem like too much work. I simply object to the apparent cynicism of the hand-wringing going on, the political machinations occurring in the background and the moral hypocrisy going on in plain view.

"Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them," Senator Clinton said in a recent press conference about the "scandal."

Yeah, so where was she when it was just players murdering the prostitutes? This isn't a dirge against Senator Clinton - although I am disappointed that more and more Democrats like Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Tipper Gore are lining up to throw stones at our "evil entertainment" - it's about people like Clinton and Bernard Goldberg, right-wing author of "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America" (and yes, Michael Moore is in there) completely missing the point.

Sure, it was wrong of the video game manufacturer to include the hidden content, but why is sex so much more an egregious, contemptible affront than violence? Why is it that movies like "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy net a PG-13 from the MPAA for the bloody swordplay and decapitations, but a flick like "Team America: World Police" is threatened with an NC-17 for depicting puppet sex? Is it our Puritan background that has us more appalled at a suggestive hip thrust than a stab wound to the neck?

Now, I'm no prude. I think people should have the right to choose what they watch, play, listen to, etc., whether it's Howard Stern on the radio or Pat Robertson on Fox News. I know which one I find more offensive. I also think that in an ideal world, parents would pay more attention to the types of entertainment their children consume, but people right now are working more hours for less money than they did decades ago, so they can be excused for being a little out of the loop.

The precise issue is that you won't hear that conversation from our political leaders. Or the ones about the huge influence of the oil and drug companies, the food and weapons industries and billion-dollar corporations like Enron and WorldCom in our daily lives.

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from all this. Maybe the video game industry should follow the path blazed by far too many corporate entities and start kicking some of its considerable grosses to Republican and Democratic political campaigns. It'd probably be the last time we have this conversation.